Nature & Wellness

Designing Resilient Communities for the Future

Biophilic Outcomes Could Save The Way We Are Living

There’s an inspiring new podcast out in the world, and the first episode features Serenbe resident Dr. Phill Tabb and is hosted by two biophilic champions, Jennifer Walsh and Monica Olsen. Dr. Tabb is Professor Emeritus of Architecture at Texas A&M and the author of multiple publications on topics such as solar energy, green architecture and sustainable urban design. On the first episode of Biophilic Solutions, Dr. Tabb discusses his most recent work, Biophilic Urbanism: Designing Communities for the Future, which explores the tools to create nature-based urban environments that are climate positive, sustainable, and healthy.

Dr. Tabb’s work began with studying solar energy, which evolved into studying renewable energy, then onto sustainability and then into biophilia. So, needless to say, he’s an expert in all of these fields. In his new book and on Biophilic Solutions, he talks about how to him, biophilia encompasses 5 areas or “outcomes” - placemaking, sustainability, health & wellness, climate neutrality and the numinous, or spiritual component.

Dr. Tabb states that most other academic publications primarily focus on health & wellness as the main component of biophilia, so he felt it necessary to dive into the other four outcomes in his Biophilic Urbanism book. With six precedent studies on communities from around the world and one expansive case study on Serenbe, Dr. Tabb measures the scalability of each of these outcomes and how they can be applied to new and already existing communities for a more resilient future.

“Scalability is ultimately what we need to have happen, which will be a huge challenge,” says Dr. Tabb on the Biophilic Solutions interview when asked what his thoughts on the five positive biophilic outcomes. He says if you take these outcomes and scale them in different ways, there are similarities but also sometimes differences. For example, building dense communities or neighborhoods can create difficulties for solar access, while it’s simultaneously good efficiency for land use. Luckily there are more similarities than differences; for example, you can have a plant in your room, trees on the street, or in a large region, planning around ecological flows. This is just a one examples of scaling up biophilia.

While these incremental biophilic elements are helpful and necessary, it’s extremely important to talk to your government officials to be sure they’re aware of the positive outcomes of planning and developing in a biophilic manner. As Dr. Tabb notes, “it’s one thing to put a plant in your room, but you’re not going to solve all the problems of the world by putting the plant there.”


Maybe you’re not sure how to get engaged in civics and talk to your local officials about biophilic. And that’s okay! To help people implement biophilia into their homes and lives in general, Dr. Tabb gave a few examples in his new book. He explores 25 biophilic pattern attributes, so you can think about how to incorporate these into your own life. One example is a nature-based pattern, which is our relation to the animal kingdom. Ever wanted a cat or dog? Well, this would be one example of becoming more biophilic. Another is putting that plant in your room or living room, since one of the other pattern attributes is our connection to the plant kingdom. There is also a pattern expressing opening up all the senses. Dr. Tabb uses Serenbe as an example: walking by the Blue Eyed Daisy and smelling the fresh baked goods, hearing people chat and also enjoying the sunlight and fresh air as you walk by. This is opening up the senses, and it’s important for this to happen in our natural and built environments.

If you keep going down the list, Dr. Tabb uses another fascinating example - living color. He got this idea from Feng Shui, and this is the idea of experiencing real, alive color, not artificial color. Experiencing the red of a red rose is different than experiencing a red color painted on a wall. It has a different kind of vibrance or liveliness to it; thus calling it living color. This is why receiving or buying fresh flowers brings up feelings of joy and comfort. This part of pattern attributes is based on the numinous, which you should listen to the episode to hear more.

To wrap up, a biophilic community is a place where people have connection to nature and can easily access those outdoors spaces. In his new book and on the Biophilic Solutions episode, you can hear Dr. Tabb discuss how planning and development should be prioritizing the natural resources and ecological conditions, resulting in the 5 biophilic outcomes: climate positive, sustainability, health and wellness, placemaking and the numinous (our connection to the spiritual realm). These can be scaled when talking about a building,  a town or a large urban city, which involves a larger beast such as complicated infrastructure. Talk to your city officials to be sure they’re aware of the positive impacts of planning through a biophilic lens.

Dr. Phill Tabb’s episode on Biophilic Solutions podcast  is HERE. Please leave subscribe, follow and leave a 5-star review. The podcast is brought to you by the Biophilic Institute, visit biophilicinstitute.com. to learn  more about Biophlia.

No items found.